Mattina: Provisioning for the Winter

Matt and I have settled in Vero Beach, Florida for a couple of weeks, giving us time to do our final system testing and provision the boat for the winter.

The Lagoon 380 has ample storage for the foods and supplies we want to take with us. Over the last few years we’ve noticed grocery shopping has improved in the Bahamas, and we worry less about having everything with us.

I’ve kept a list over the years that I keep updated. During the winter months, I mark when we run out of something and know if I have to buy more or less of an item the next season.

Below you see my first pass at loading the boat up. We take several goes at it until we’ve filled our storage spaces.

And now I get to put all this away!

To give us more room for meat, we load our freezer with unfrozen meat. This takes up a lot less space than putting frozen meat into the freezer. It does use more amps than if we put it in frozen, but it’s worth it. We layer the meat by type, alternating rows. First row steak, next pork, next chicken, and then start over with steak. This way we don’t have to dig to the bottom for a type of meat we want.

We try to store evenly by weight in each hull, allowing the boat to sit flat on the water.

We’ve also found that once we are ‘out there’ we don’t need as much as we do on land. If we don’t have it, we do without and we always seem okay with that.

Mitzi Jo – Farley here. Check out http://kristinastanley.net/2011/11/03/provisioning-for-farley/ and you can see all my food. Kristina puts it under the bed and under the floor boards. She learned not to store it in one place in case a bag gets wet (like when Matt repaired the hot water tank – oops) and then I’m short a bag.
Kristina must really love me because she adds meat to my kibble. I get steak, bacon, chicken – whatever is on the go. I’ve made it very clear that I’m a carnivore.

The lagoon is very roomy and bright. It’s one of the reasons we bought it. It feels almost like we live outside (unless it’s cold and we shut everything and turn on the heater). As for organized – not really, but I try hard.